Sturdy table base supports that have high load bearing capacity and deformation resistance are usually custom made, expensive, heavy, and dedicated to one fixed mode of use, configuration or size. Examples of sturdy, stable, and exacting table supports include optical benches, fixed height work benches, and table bases architecturally custom built into a building. Work benches require sufficient strength to support both the weight of work materials, tools and support structures as well as the working forces produced when the materials are processed while being supported. As a conventional example, a sturdy table base may have a height of 0.8 meters and a horizontal area of 1.0 meter by 3.0 meters and weigh 160 kilograms. These types of tables are usually welded and may require a set of holding fixtures during assembly to insure that they are consistently properly aligned. Production setups are generally fixed so that different sized tables will require a specific combination of sets of pre-specified parts and holding fixtures for each size of table to be produced. A required inventory of pre-specified parts for each one of a number of table sizes commercially offered can require a manufacturer to stock a sizeable inventory representing a sunk investment cost that will necessarily increase the cost to consumers.
Each different size or other aspect of configuration offered can easily multiply the numbers of sets of components and thus multiply total inventory cost. Conversely, an inability to make or offer different sizes of table supports and tables will reduce the market penetration for a type of table construction because it does not meet enough of a market segment customers' needs. In this case users would likely, even though reluctantly, select other types of tables in order to meet their space and size requirements. What is therefore needed is a table support system which can give table purchasers the flexibility to specify a large number of table size attributes in order that table manufacturers be able to make hundreds of different sizes of tables without having to incur the sunk cost of stocks of different sized components for each combination that might be specified by a customer and thus enable a wide variety of table supports to be made available at a lower price.